Veer Left or Adhere Closer to Center?
May 31, 2022 10:28 AM Subscribe
Is there any solid data on what electoral strategy can most likely work best for Democrats in national general elections in terms of policies and tone?
It seems to be a perennial question: can Democratic candidates for president do better in general elections by pushing hard for progressive changes, thereby inspiring and motivating more strongly Democratic voters, or can they do better by making sure not to turn off independent voters, conservative Democrats, and moderate Republicans with policy objectives and attendant rhetoric that are less comfortable to those who are not progressives/liberals?
In other words, in general elections, does energizing progressives to donate, get involved, and vote provide more overall votes, or does an effort to draw votes from voters who do not identify as progressive draw more overall votes? Is there any useful survey data or other data that helps address this question?
I'm particularly interested in answers that can likely pertain well to the recent or current political environment rather than only older historical ones.
It seems to be a perennial question: can Democratic candidates for president do better in general elections by pushing hard for progressive changes, thereby inspiring and motivating more strongly Democratic voters, or can they do better by making sure not to turn off independent voters, conservative Democrats, and moderate Republicans with policy objectives and attendant rhetoric that are less comfortable to those who are not progressives/liberals?
In other words, in general elections, does energizing progressives to donate, get involved, and vote provide more overall votes, or does an effort to draw votes from voters who do not identify as progressive draw more overall votes? Is there any useful survey data or other data that helps address this question?
I'm particularly interested in answers that can likely pertain well to the recent or current political environment rather than only older historical ones.
David Shor is a prominent analyst who falls on the "do better by making sure not to turn off independent voters" side. But politics and policy doesn't fall along a single dimension. For example, here he contrasts the minimum wage (broadly popular) with defund the police (not). So "inspire the left" vs "court the middle" is one framing, but another is, "Democrats should run on the popular progressive ideas, but not the unpopular ones." That's consistent with the Jacobin report above, which as Superilla notes, says "Progressives do not need to surrender questions of social justice to win working-class voters, but 'woke,' activist-inspired rhetoric is a liability."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:16 PM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:16 PM on May 31, 2022 [6 favorites]
There's a purely mechanical (partial) answer to this question that's worth remembering: switching a voter from your opponent is worth twice as much as convincing a non-voter to vote, because you gain a vote, but also your opponent loses one.
posted by kickingtheground at 1:04 PM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by kickingtheground at 1:04 PM on May 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
Unfortunately, there's a very limited sample size of national elections in the US, so the data tends to be up for interpretation.
It might be interesting to use other comparable countries to get more data points. For example, Australia is fairly similar to US in many ways. And it has a ranked ballot voting system, so there's much more data about preferences. In principle, for each election you could get an answer to the question "does a left-wing party or a centre-left party compete best against the right?" I unfortunately can't find how to get raw data for this, but it's probably online somewhere.
Other international comparables may be more distant from the US in terms of politics (eg: Germany, Ireland), or use electoral systems that make it harder to answer your question (Canada, UK). But they could still be interesting to look at. My impression is that in recently years, the centre-left has had significantly more successes than the far left. For example, among the G20, we've had Biden, Scholz, Trudeau, Moon, Albanese, Sanchez, Fernandez vs just Rousseff, AMLO. But there are so many contingencies (what about closes losses, like Corbyn?), and difficulty of interpretation (where does Macron fit?), that anyone can find room to argue.
posted by vasi at 1:02 AM on June 1, 2022
It might be interesting to use other comparable countries to get more data points. For example, Australia is fairly similar to US in many ways. And it has a ranked ballot voting system, so there's much more data about preferences. In principle, for each election you could get an answer to the question "does a left-wing party or a centre-left party compete best against the right?" I unfortunately can't find how to get raw data for this, but it's probably online somewhere.
Other international comparables may be more distant from the US in terms of politics (eg: Germany, Ireland), or use electoral systems that make it harder to answer your question (Canada, UK). But they could still be interesting to look at. My impression is that in recently years, the centre-left has had significantly more successes than the far left. For example, among the G20, we've had Biden, Scholz, Trudeau, Moon, Albanese, Sanchez, Fernandez vs just Rousseff, AMLO. But there are so many contingencies (what about closes losses, like Corbyn?), and difficulty of interpretation (where does Macron fit?), that anyone can find room to argue.
posted by vasi at 1:02 AM on June 1, 2022
The common view is the the most important factor in presidential election is the state of the economy, and the second is probably the candidate in terms of name recognition, personality, etc. That puts messaging into third place. And messaging is often a state-to-state thing because of TV advertising.
I'd guess the answer to the question is left enough to excite the voters but not so far as to seem unrealistic.
Both Clinton and Obama disappointed their fans once elected because they had to become more centrist to get anything done.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:35 AM on June 1, 2022
I'd guess the answer to the question is left enough to excite the voters but not so far as to seem unrealistic.
Both Clinton and Obama disappointed their fans once elected because they had to become more centrist to get anything done.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:35 AM on June 1, 2022
I'll just mention two other potential factors or avenues to electoral victory. In summary the two you mentioned are #1. Fire up the base and #2. Court the center/"independent" voter." To those I would add:
They're also adept at microtargeted messaging. To a large degree, you're telling each audience exactly what they want to hear, but in such a way that the other microtargeted audiences are not even aware of the messaging going to other groups that they might strongly disagree with.
#3. is where negative campaigning comes into play. What happens when a campaign devolves into negative campaigning and mudslinging is that overall turnout tends to be suppressed. When you see this it is very often a conscious election tactic, taken by a candidate who knows if there is (say) 60% turnout the election is lost, but if they can keep it to 30% they'll likely win. This kind of discrepancy can happen when Candidate A has a smaller overall percentage of supporters, but a relatively large percentage of those are very fired up in support. Candidate B has support from the majority of voters, but most of them are just lukewarm in their support and the truly fired-up base is quite small.
Candidate A runs a massively negative attack campaign and Candidate B is forced to respond. This hurts Candidate B immensely as those lukewarm voters are turned off by the campaign vitriol and stay home in droves. Candidate A's supporters don't like it either, but they have a higher commitment level and hold their noses all the way to the voting booth regardless.
My final comment is that any campaign is trying to find a balance among all these factors - firing up your base, courting the centrist voter, and suppressing or discouraging votes from the opponent's supporters.
Figuring out how to win elections is (to a large degree) being able to strike the right balance among those competing strategies. Which combination of the three is best in any given situation is not set in stone, but varies from time to time, place to place, and candidate to candidate. What is an excellent strategy in one environment might be terrible in a different place, different time, and/or different candidate.
Here is a research paper that discusses some of these issues.
posted by flug at 4:09 PM on June 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
- #3. Generally suppress turnout. But in particular, discourage the opponent's supporters from voting (at least, moreso than your own supporters).
- #4. Do all of the above through a combination of good general messaging and targeted messaging
They're also adept at microtargeted messaging. To a large degree, you're telling each audience exactly what they want to hear, but in such a way that the other microtargeted audiences are not even aware of the messaging going to other groups that they might strongly disagree with.
#3. is where negative campaigning comes into play. What happens when a campaign devolves into negative campaigning and mudslinging is that overall turnout tends to be suppressed. When you see this it is very often a conscious election tactic, taken by a candidate who knows if there is (say) 60% turnout the election is lost, but if they can keep it to 30% they'll likely win. This kind of discrepancy can happen when Candidate A has a smaller overall percentage of supporters, but a relatively large percentage of those are very fired up in support. Candidate B has support from the majority of voters, but most of them are just lukewarm in their support and the truly fired-up base is quite small.
Candidate A runs a massively negative attack campaign and Candidate B is forced to respond. This hurts Candidate B immensely as those lukewarm voters are turned off by the campaign vitriol and stay home in droves. Candidate A's supporters don't like it either, but they have a higher commitment level and hold their noses all the way to the voting booth regardless.
My final comment is that any campaign is trying to find a balance among all these factors - firing up your base, courting the centrist voter, and suppressing or discouraging votes from the opponent's supporters.
Figuring out how to win elections is (to a large degree) being able to strike the right balance among those competing strategies. Which combination of the three is best in any given situation is not set in stone, but varies from time to time, place to place, and candidate to candidate. What is an excellent strategy in one environment might be terrible in a different place, different time, and/or different candidate.
Here is a research paper that discusses some of these issues.
posted by flug at 4:09 PM on June 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
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To crib from PhineasGage in that discussion, you can say "we need to double the minimum wage because the millionaires and lobbyists who run Washington have turned their backs on the people who actually work for a living", or you could say "we need to double the minimum wage, which will help the most vulnerable -- the poor, the immigrants, the people of color". Both of these statements are advocating the same policy objective, which will produce the same real-world outcomes. The second one actually provides more information about the expected outcomes of enacting the policy, but the first one is -- as tested in the report -- far more appealing to centre-left working class voters, including both the poor and those of color.
posted by Superilla at 11:20 AM on May 31, 2022 [7 favorites]